


Through the Night

by Wayfarers



Category: Drive (2011)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 01:30:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wayfarers/pseuds/Wayfarers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Driver was almost never afraid - for himself, that is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through the Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pesha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pesha/gifts).



> Had a lot of fun writing this treat, hope you enjoy it!

“Aren’t you ever afraid, kid?”

The Driver shook his head and didn’t say anything. The question was, was he ever afraid when he was doing a stunt, but if it had been if he were ever afraid while doing one of his night jobs the answer still would have been no.

There were times when he was afraid, but he was very rarely afraid for himself. He was afraid for Shannon. The guy was the closest thing he ever had to family and The Driver knew he’d already been broken once by a deal gone wrong. He knew that next time Shannon wouldn’t be given the mercy of a shattered pelvis – he’d be dead, and he was right. Dead and cold on the ground by the time he arrived, with the money nestled in the car he had died leaning up against. The money that might have saved him. In that moment the supposedly fearless Driver knew what true courage was.

He was afraid, no, _terrified_ for Irene. Sweet Irene, she’d done everything right and ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person and now as long as he lived she was in danger. He wasn’t afraid to die, he never had been. There were days when he felt like the walking dead already. Driving made him feel alive, the rush of adrenaline every time he was a hair’s length away from death, a few seconds away from being caught and put in jail. He didn’t fear jail any more than he feared death. If he ended up in jail, he’d sit in his cell staring quiet and almost unblinking. He was in a holding cell once, just once, for a day as a teenager and no one would sit near him. Bigger guys, tougher guys, older guys, they wouldn’t touch this pretty young buy with no scars.

He didn’t mind feeling dead. It was nice to feel alive, but there was no pain when he stepped out of the car and back into the world where the work he got to do with his hands was the only thing that stopped the days from passing by like minutes. Driving made him feel alive, but Irene made him feel _human_. The Driver rarely dreamed at all but he was haunted by dreams of Irene’s death, because his heart – his soul, if he believed in such a thing – would die with her. A dead body was one thing, a dead heart was another.

There was a lighter in his pocket he’d gotten from the set of a movie once, the movie’s logo nearly rubbed off the side of it with how long he’d spent holding it, clenching it, twirling it around in the palm of his hands until it was warm and sticky with sweat. He wasn’t a smoker. Sometimes he stuck a toothpick in his mouth so he could have something there. He tried cigarettes once, but he wasn’t fond of them. They were costly and the smell would stick with him for days, which wasn’t a good thing for a guy that liked to be untraceable. All the movies he’d watched growing up showed the rebels and the criminal-types smoking, though, so he used the toothpick as a substitute.

With the lighter, he just liked to hear the noise it made when he flicked it, see the flame pop out from the top. It helped him to concentrate and remain grounded in reality, not fade off into thoughts and wake up hours later. It even gave him a bit of a rush when it sparked a little and the sparks landed on his fingers. He had the hands of a mechanic, rough and dulled to pain, so the sparks gave him a bit of a zing without really hurting, sort of like pop rocks.

The Driver didn’t carry a weapon, but any time anyone came at him with one he managed to win. Bullets flew around him like they were repelled and his ability to quickly judge the environment around him meant that he could fend off guns with a mattress. He wasn’t surprised when Bernie stabbed him. That was how his type was. He didn’t scream, or yell, or grunt in pain. He retaliated and Bernie died.

He retaliated and won. Bernie was dead on the ground, still twitching, bleed spurting from his neck. He set the money on the ground beside him. He could have his money. This money was nothing but pain, and he didn’t need it. Someone would still be looking for it. To cast it away was like fending off a wasp’s nest. It would sit there baking in the sun until someone else was tempted.

Irene was safe.

Pain wasn’t anything to him. He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting in the car, bleeding from the wound in his abdomen. He’d lost track of time again. Should’ve pulled out the lighter. The words echoed in his head again, words that had been said to him so many times that he heard them as a monolith of voiced without identity, without tone, without judgement. Just a fact of his life.

“Aren’t you ever afraid, kid?”

Fear had gone from him. Irene was safe, he thought again, and he swore he could hear roaring applause mixed in with the ringing in his ears. Applause like the big stars whose faces he wore got – no, better, applause like a hero only got in the movies.

He touched the wound with one hand. Blood, still bleeding. He should have drifted off by now, but his heart was still pounding. He was here, in his car. How could he die in the place that made him feel alive? As far as he was concerned, if he kept driving he was immortal until the car sputtered and died, taking him with it.

He turned the key in the ignition. The engine purred for a moment and then ran so quiet he could swear it wasn’t on at all. He drove in the darkness, down the quiet side-roads lit only by his headlights where no one else traveled. The asphalt in front of him seemed flawless and new, nostalgic like they evoked memories from a time before he was born, a time when things with four wheels that moved faster than horses were still wonders and so much quiet terrain lay unexplored.

The wound was still there, but he couldn’t even feel it anymore. He drove, that calm, unblinking look that made others so wary of him on his face but he’d never felt more alive, more at peace. Miles and miles of road stretched out in front of him and he found twists and turns he’d never seen, secret alleys and gravel paths through mountains.

He never hit a red light, the engine never sputtered, and the fuel gauge always read full.


End file.
